Fire has been used by Man to burn vegetation since early times. Originally used as a primitive hunting method to flush out wild animals, it has been developed in modern times as a veld management tool to promote vegetation growth trends (e.g. promoting grass veld, removal of alien vegetation), assist with water conservation, and the

Fire has been a feature of Earth for millions of years, and has been influential in both how our planet has formed, and the subsequent life that developed. Through the process of natural selection, plant and animal species have changed their size, shape, and abilities to survive. Some species that encountered minimal changes to their

With the ever growing list of rare and endangered animals and plants, there is ongoing pressure on wildlife organisations to take steps to conserve these threatened species from becoming extinct. It is unfortunate that injury and death to wildlife will occur during runaway wildfires. While some animals have the ability to escape the advancing flames,

Fire intensity is the term used to describe how hot the fire has burned. In fire management circles, we use the terms “hot fires”, and “cold fires”. A hot fire is one that burns at a very high temperature, moves very slowly, and as a result tends to burn all the material present. In contrast,

We discussed how fuel loads can effect the intensity of a wildfire, and the effects of fire intensity on the environment, in the previous section. To prevent damage to the environment due to very hot fires, and reduce the chances of damage to homes, buildings, crops, livestock, orchards, etc. it has become necessary to manage

The fighting of any fire is a dangerous activity, and as such specialised groups have formed that undertake to extinguish specific kinds of fires, such as ship fires, house / structural fires, oil refinery fires, and in our case, vegetation fires. More people are killed and injured fighting vegetation fires than any other type of

There are three main categories of how wildfires start, namely Natural, Accidental, and Intentional. a) Natural fires include lighting strikes, rock falls, and self combustion. There are parts of the country that are prone to lightning fires, while other areas have rocks that are able to make sparks when struck against each. Self combustion veldfires, those which

Burning cigarette butts discarded by careless smokers can cause veld fires. But it’s unfair and irresponsible to believe that all unexplained veld fires are caused by smokers. Fires caused by cigarettes can be placed into two categories. The first is where a person uses a burning cigarette with the specific intention of causing malicious damage,

There are three main groups of factors that influence the spread of wildfires :- a) Weather : This includes the wind speed and direction, temperature and relative humidity. The wind speed has a major effect on the spread of the fire, and at times the fire can travel faster than a person can run. Trying

There are a number of areas where education and awareness programmes can have a huge impact on reducing the number of wildfires we experience in South Africa. a) School children :  Programmes need to be developed that cater for both the school environment (i.e. curriculum based), and holiday periods when a marked increase in fires